When the “blogging revolution” first began, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell the difference.
Then the WordPress CMS came along and changed everything. Now, it’s getting more and more difficult to tell blogs and websites apart. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of website design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application Websites Are Built With?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a CMS application like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the things that the majority of website owners are concerned with, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the site up-to-date, managing content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the options below would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a much cheaper cost than the cost of getting site “A” above.
If you picked website ”B” above, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create an eye-catching website that could turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using other website development tools … and how to tell the two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s leading online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful content management system suitable for most business needs.
Whether your reason for having an online presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no programming skills to use, and offers an array of helpful features that make your web site highly effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s functionality, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world currently being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site could also be powered by WordPress.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting one built, then wouldn’t it be great to show your web developer an existing site with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get something similarly built for your business quite inexpensively?
The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Runs On The WP CMS Platform
Do you need to know if your website is powered by WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard or read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other CMS application.
Also, have you ever looked at a competitor’s website and wondered what they’re doing to try and get better results online?
Knowing if your competitor’s site is built with WordPress can tell you a few things about their strategies and methods, such as what themes or plugins they are using.
Here are some simple methods you can use to quickly tell if sites are built using WordPress:
Check The Page’s Source Code For Obvious Tell-Tale The TellTale WordPress Footprint
If you know how to bring up the source code of a web page (e.g. Firefox Menu > Web Developer > Page Source if using Firefox, or Google Menu > More Tools > View Source if using Google Chrome), you can look for a telltale footprint that the site was built with WordPress …
(Viewing web page source code using the Firefox web browser)
Suppose that you are surfing the web and you visit a site that you like, and you wonder if the site runs on WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the page’s source code, you can search for the words “wp-content” either manually …
Or using the browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.
Note: If you do not see “wp-content” in the page source code, it does not mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if the site was built using the WordPress software, as we will soon see.
As the point of this post is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier ways to check if your web site is built using WordPress other than searching the source code.
Just Ask Your Web Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, some web developers, for whatever reason, will build clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you have an existing website and you can’t tell what CMS application was used to build it, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if it runs on WordPress.
That was simple, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach your website developer, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net late at night and need to know if the site was built with WordPress?
Check Below The Footer
If the site uses a WordPress theme and the web templates have not been customized, you will often see a “Powered by WordPress” notice displayed in the footer section of the site …
(Proudly Powered by WordPress – footer)
If the methods above aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site was built using WordPress or not …
Tools That Can Tell You If A Website Has Been Built With WordPress
Here are a couple of sites that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WordPress?
(Is It WordPress?)
IsItWP.com is a free tool that tells you if a site was built using WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just add the URL of the website into the URL field and click the button.
It will then go and search through the URL code and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, it will even tell you the version of WordPress it is currently using …
If the site is not a WordPress web site or blog, you will get a message similar to the one below …
To visit this site, go here:
Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori
(WordPress Theme Detector)
WordPress Theme Detector by Satori Studio is a free tool that can help determine whether or not a website uses WordPress as its CMS engine; it will also tell you which theme the site is using and provide a link to the theme’s official page.
To use this tool, paste the URL of a web page (it doesn’t have to be the home page) into the ‘Enter website URL’ field and click on the ‘What WordPress theme is that?’ button …
(Enter website URL and click the button)
The Detector will automatically scan the website and output its theme information …
(WordPress Theme Detector displays theme results)
If a website is built with WordPress but the theme is too customized to contain any traces of its origins, the Detector will still let you know it’s a WP site by outputting a message on the right.
(Modified WordPress theme message)
If the website is not using WordPress at all, the tool will also let you know …
(This website is not WordPress)
You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:
Wappalyzer
(Wappalyzer)
If you use a browser like Firefox or Chrome and would like to be able to instantly tell if the sites that you are visiting were built using WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension to add to your web browser.
Wappalyzer identifies what type of software is installed on the sites you are visiting.
According to their website …
“Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.”
It’s also very easy to install and very easy to use.
After installing Wappalyzer, icons will display in your browser, next to the site URL identifying which technologies are being used by all the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on your browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(It’s a WordPress site!)
Go here to learn more:
SpyBar
(SpyBar – Browser Addon For WordPress)
SpyBar is a browser addon that lets you ‘reverse engineer’ any WordPress site you visit and see which WordPress plugins and themes are being used, right inside your web browser …
(SpyBar – Discover WordPress Plugins And Themes Used By Your Competitors)
SpyBar can be installed as a browser extension on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and is compatible with PC and Mac.
To download or learn more about SpyBar, go here:
Plugin Sniper
(Plugin Sniper – Find out what plugins a WordPress site is using)
Plugin Sniper lets you find out what plugins a WordPress site is using. This is a useful tool if you want to know what WordPress plugins are being used by your competitors.
Plugin Sniper is also a useful tool for researching what kinds of plugins businesses in certain niches are using …
(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)
To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, go here:
I hope that you have found this tutorial useful.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie